Billed hats commonly known as “baseball hats” and “baseball caps” (collectively referred to as “baseball hats” herein) are very popular. The typical baseball hat includes a cap portion sized to rest on a wearer's head and a billed portion extending therefrom, usually at the wearer's forehead such that the billed portion shields the wearer's eyes from the sun.
The exposed surface of the typical baseball hat usually includes surface indicia, such as a sports team's or business' name or logo. A particularly visible, and therefore desirable, location to display such surface indicia is on a front panel of the cap portion adjacent to the billed portion. Accordingly, baseball hats and the like bearing appropriate surface indicia are often used for promotional and advertising purposes.
The typical baseball hat includes a plurality of materials joined together. For example, the cap portion may include a plurality of mesh fabric panels sewn together around a flexible headband. The billed portion is typically planar cardboard or the like covered with a fabric material and joined to the cap portion with known means and methods. Surface indicia is applied at desirable locations, usually by embroidering or the like.
These materials and methods of construction necessarily increase the costs of each hat. In most cases, these costs do not justify the promotional and advertising benefits associated with a business widely distributing complementary hats bearing appropriate surface indicia. For example, a small restaurant owner would not likely give away and widely distribute these types of baseball hats bearing the name of the restaurant to potential patrons or the like. Similarly, despite the protection from the sun associated with wearing a baseball hat at an outdoor sporting event, and the high likelihood of fans wearing such a hat at the event if they had remembered to bring one from home, a vendor or advertiser is not likely to give each fan such a hat. The hats themselves are simply too expensive to justify their use as promotional items.
Attempts have been made to construct billed hats using economical materials such as cardboard and paper. For example, in Russian Pat. No. 19,716 to Aliferenko, a separate, central strip of paper extends between the paper bill of the hat and the paper headband to define a cap area. However, like with traditional cloth hats, considerable manufacturing efforts must be made to construct the various components of these types of paper hats and then assemble them together. These efforts necessarily increase the production costs of each hat. Moreover, the final assembled paper hat is not adjustable around the headband or in the volume of the cap portion. Also, the central strip forming the cap portion is not vividly outlined, offers only a limited surface area for displaying surface indicia thereon, and offers limited structural support, thereby limiting the rigidity of the assembled hat. Accordingly, wearer comfort, ease of use, and the promotional benefits of the hat are compromised. Moreover, these types of hats are not reversible by their wearers.
More recently, attempts have been made to reduce the production costs of hats by making them from a single sheet of cardboard or the like. However, these attempts to reduce the production costs have also compromised the quality and fit of the hat. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,590 to Haber et al. discloses a visor having a display panel adjacent to a bill with adjustable straps extending from the bill to form a headband. To wear the visor, the wearer must detach the hat from the rectangular sheet of paper-type material, and join the straps together to form the headband. Since the headband is the only means for securing the visor to its wearer, it must fit snuggly around the wearer's head. In practice, the snug fit is uncomfortable for the wearer over prolonged use, and it places significant strain on the straps leading to their premature wear. Moreover, there is no cap portion to protect the wearer's head from the sun and provide additional space for surface indicia.
In addition, known baseball hats and the like that are constructed from a single sheet of material have several limitations. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,092,239 to Pogrebitsky et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,428,842 to Wise disclose baseball hats having left and right straps extending from a billed portion. The cap portion is defined by five elongate strips of material extending from the billed portion between the left and right straps. The elongate strips are joined at a point near their opposite ends to define a cap portion, and the left and right strips are joined to each other and the end of a central elongate strip to define each hat's headband.
These types of hats require numerous die-cuts in the planar material to form the elongate strips, and they also require at least one alignment hole or the like to be cut into each elongate strip, thereby increasing the assembly time and related costs of each hat. Moreover, because of spacing requirements between the various components forming each hat, a significant portion of the planar material is wasted when forming the hat. In addition, the volume of the cap portion in this type of hat is not adjustable, and considerable time, effort, and some cases even special fasteners are required to fully assemble each hat. In practice, a patron receiving these types of hats in unassembled form, such as at a sporting event, may find it too difficult or too confusing to assemble. Accordingly, he may simply throw such a hat away rather than use it, thereby destroying any promotional value offered by the hat.
Moreover, the numerous elongate strips that form the cap portion of these types of hats make it difficult to place an easily viewable continuous surface indicia, such as a large logo or the like, on the cap portion of the hat. For example, a large logo would have to be printed onto each elongate strip in segments such that when the cap is assembled, they would align to form the logo. It can be difficult for a wearer to consistently assemble and align such strips in such a manner as to prevent distracting the viewer's view of the overall logo. Moreover, such structures to not lend themselves to being reversible, thereby precluding a wearer from selecting between two different patterns of surface indicia to display on the hat. It can be difficult for a wearer to consistently assemble and align such strips in such a manner as to prevent distracting the viewer's view of the overall logo.